


Exhibition Drill

by svecounia



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Furiosa wants nothing less in this world than Imperator Toast, Gen, Unlikely Friendships, gonna let you know up front that this will never become shippy, justice for Ace, tenuous alliances, war boy-style military drill team
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-25 02:33:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4943332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svecounia/pseuds/svecounia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toast's quick draw and affinity for combat draws Furiosa's attention as the Citadel rebuilds, but she refuses to let Toast tread the war path she once walked. Ace is enlisted to help, a handful of war boys are more of a hindrance, and Toast finds her place in line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tension

Toast was there when he burst into the room. All of them were, the two Vuvalini included, though the former wives had been told to stand back, give Furiosa some breathing room: she needed her rest and getting her all the way in from the lifts and lying her down had been burden enough. The Dag had hissed and snarled at the sick war boys in the Blood Shed to pipe down as they made their way to the private bay, her hands balled into fists to keep them from shaking, but helping with Max's transfusion seemed to have emboldened her, and Toast had watched her, impressed. Capable was allowed near, her hand curled around Furiosa's, while Cheedo looked on with a rapt sort of attention Toast had never seen in her before. Cheedo's eyes flicked in every direction as the Vuvalini reached for fresh bandages, tools to inspect the wounds, dabbed away dried blood from the gruesome punctures – now that Furiosa was safe and it was sure she'd be cared for, it seemed the fragile part of Cheedo had been left back in the Gigahorse. 

But it was Toast who startled first when the door banged open: she whipped out the revolver she'd stolen from Joe, the one that had left its vicious mark on her right cheek.

"Lower that, breeder, you don't know what you're holding," the war boy growled as he strode forward, and just as Toast was about to spit back that she knew enough to splatter his brains against the rock, he halted, his eyes on Furiosa.

"Boss."

Furiosa drew a breath that rattled loud in her lungs, stirring, only to be pushed back down with a hushed admonition from Erika. Moxie regarded the war boy with suspicion, her own hand on her weapon.

"No, he—" Furiosa protested, but the effort of forming words racked her body with coughs, curving her spine and causing her shoulders to go rigid as she convulsed with the force of them. The war boy let out a breath, helpless, drawn to her but hesitant to move forward with another weapon about to be trained on him. He was old, Toast noticed. Way older than the average war boy she'd seen at the Citadel or anywhere else. Goggles hung around his neck to spare his swollen nose – it looked like it had been broken badly. White paint flaking, black grease fading… this guy was a wreck, but he was too healthy to be one of the ones left behind, and no vehicles had followed them through the pass, Erica had been keeping watch the whole time. 

"He's my Ace," Furiosa rasped at last, and Toast tightened her grip on her gun. Her ace, huh? Loyal enough to Furiosa to be her second, loyal enough to Joe not to be in on their escape plan. 

"What happened to you, Valhalla spit you back out?" Toast sneered. The Ace turned his head to regard her over the barrel of her gun, lips tight and eyes unreadable, and she lifted her chin defiantly.

"Never made it into the storm. Boss saw to that," he growled with a bitter nod in Furiosa's direction. Furiosa closed her eyes. "Came to long after everyone'd taken off in pursuit."

"Your Immortan's dead." It was Cheedo this time, another moment of bravery. Her voice didn't even shake. 

"Heard about that." His tone was as stiff as his shoulders

"And if you even _think_ about touching her—"

Ace started forward again at this. Moxie drew her gun in a flash just as Toast let off a warning shot to the ceiling. They were peppered with fragments of shattered rock; Furiosa tensed at the sudden gunshot and hissed in pain, clapping a hand to her ribs. Ace froze: the warning shot had no effect on him at all, but Furiosa's agony stopped him dead. 

"Out," Moxie ordered, jerking her gun in the direction of the door. "Now." 

"He's not—" Furiosa wheezed between ragged breaths. She turned her head as best she could, struggling to focus on him, but he was backing away at last, his eyes wide. Even Toast had to admit to herself that a kamicrazy war boy would probably have just leaped on her and been done with it. Get a blow to her head in and let her injuries do the rest, die avenging his Immortan. But the Ace was at the door, still not keen to turn his back to the women just yet.

"Two days' rest," he growled. "Two. And then I will speak with her."

* * *

There was a lot to organize. Luckily organization was pretty much Capable's only talent, though it grated against Toast to be ordered back and forth. Talk to the pups about this, then run to the milking mothers about that, don't forget the rations for the sick ones, remember as many names as you can! Hectic though it was, everything was done to keep Furiosa's focus on her recovery. They owed her that much, and far more. That was a goal Toast would stand stalwartly behind as long as she had to. 

Apparently the talk between Ace and Furiosa had gone well. Toast was angry the Vuvalini had agreed to it without consulting the rest of them, and she was even angrier that she wasn't around to be a part of the meeting when it did happen: the former wives had all conveniently been on inventory duty, taking stock of water, weapons, food, everything under the sun so they could project how long they'd have before Gas Town and the Bullet Farm came knocking. Moxie had presided over the Imperator and her second while Erika stood guard outside, and by the time Toast found out, there was nothing to be done. That was that. There was no more discussion about it beyond "he's trustworthy" in the weeks that followed, and Toast's sisters were infuriatingly satisfied with this explanation. No allies to be found there. She trusted Furiosa's judgment as much as the rest of them, if not more so, but still, some _actual information_ would have been welcome. Furiosa had been moved to her old Imperator's quarters seven days in, and Toast was itching for guard duty outside her room. She knew Ace and Furiosa still visited often – that way if he wanted to talk to her, he'd have to explain himself to Toast first.

That was probably exactly why Erika and Moxie never let her on guard duty in the first place. Capable had to be in on it too, or she wouldn't stare after Toast every time she told her to head up to the gardens or down to the Blood Shed or wherever else. The petty unfairness made Toast's blood boil.

But guard duty wasn't a job opening that lasted long anyway. Eventually they all reasoned that guards sent the wrong message: Furiosa couldn't be seen as needing or even deserving protection, or else the war boys would either seek to capitalize on her weakness or fashion her into another Immortan. As soon as her recovery permitted it, she was up and out of bed to meet with them, not as their ruler nor as their betrayer, but as another person, one of them, one who fought to survive just as they did, and one who strove for a better world alongside them. And who was there at her side when she did so but the Ace. 

The other women joined her too, of course. It was critical that they weave themselves into the fabric of the Citadel as soon as possible, and with all the rebuilding that needed to be done, they were already off to a great start, especially with Dag in the gardens, Cheedo in the Blood Shed, and Capable aggravatingly presiding over all. But Ace's presence set Toast on edge. He wasn't an impressionable pup, nor was he some malleable zealot eager to throw himself at the feet of whoever looked most likely to take up the mantle of authority. 

"He had to be there," Erica explained under her breath after the meeting broke. "The war boys need to trust us as much as we need to trust them. It's bridge building."

"I know," Toast grumbled back.

"And don't write them off, either," Moxie warned. "They're not mindless drones."

 _"I know,"_ Toast repeated irritably. Her eyes found Ace's back as he spoke with a small group of younger war boys. "Him especially."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Toast is the best, Ace is the best, Furiosa is the best, I had to write about all three of them, plus one added element I just couldn't shake as soon as I imagined it. Can't wait to get there. I anticipate four chapters, but we'll see! I welcome all feedback, positive and constructive alike.


	2. Resignation

Yes, Toast was often armed, but _no,_ never visibly, because she wasn't an idiot. If she was asked directly by anyone other than Furiosa, that was her answer. (If she was asked directly by Furiosa, she lied.) And while she's explaining, she might add that it also wasn't by coincidence that she'd taken to wearing a pair of black cargos like the war boys, nor was it a coincidence that she had only adopted them after Capable had done so first. They were good for storing tools while she worked on the cars, Capable had explained, gesturing with a grease-blackened hand at the pockets. Perhaps Capable had received some kind of divine inspiration from V8 to quit ordering people around, and if Toast believed in any of that slag, she would have thanked him on bended knee. But once Furiosa had assumed higher-level duties, Capable was much more often seen with the war boys in the garages – they'd welcomed her in almost at once when she promised to repeat every detail of Nux's glorious race to Valhalla whenever they asked.

If Toast had adopted the cargo pants first, Furiosa would have asked what she was hiding in them, and she would _know_ the answer was a gun without really having to interrogate Toast at all, and Toast wasn't about to sit through that just for the spectacle and shame of it. But if she followed Capable, it was just another mark of the changing times at the Citadel, one among hundreds in the months that followed Furiosa's full recovery. 

It was usually a pistol, small and compact, and during infirmary duty – Cheedo never let anyone call it the Blood Shed anymore – Toast would keep one eye on the bustle of pups and milking-mothers-turned-nurses and the other eye on the gun in her hands, practicing her quick draw and reload over and over with spare empty magazines. The sight of firearms in the infirmary was no new sight to the pups, so there was no risk of a rat there, and the milking mothers were a sympathetic bunch. They'd seen enough violence to know that if a woman wanted to protect herself, she was going to do it whether the method was Imperator-approved or not. 

And it certainly wasn't. Every time she thought about it, Toast's nose wrinkled in frustration and a prickle of betrayal: she was good enough to load a clip when Furiosa needed it, good enough to level a revolver at a war boy's head and be prepared to pull the trigger, but now she couldn't be trusted to keep one on her? "It's not a matter of trust," Furiosa said, more exasperated with every repetition, and Toast knew the next time she asked would be the one that made the Imperator's expression close completely. Better to keep her pistol hidden in the deep pockets of her trousers. And Joe's old revolver under her mattress. And the two rifles beneath her bed, covered by her discarded white linens. And the boxes of ammunition carefully stacked alongside books where they couldn't be seen.

The click of gunmetal was rhythmic to her, and as she sat under the dim filtered light of the infirmary, pups had come up to her on more than one occasion to laugh at the beats she'd learned to crack out. "What, all that drumming and none of you thought to make some music of your own?" she asked that day's audience, smiling despite herself. "Go on, go prep a donor, we have a war boy coming in today." 

Donors, not blood bags. And volunteers at that: some had chosen freedom, but a handful had agreed to stay behind in exchange for comfortable quarter, plenty of rations, and a rotation that permitted them two weeks of rest in between. It wasn't a perfect system yet, but everyone anticipated even more improvements with the milking mothers on healing duty. Without the war boys being run down as often under Furiosa, the demand was lower, and there was even talk of bringing a few Wretched up as well to help ease the burden.

Toast got to her feet and pocketed her gun, grinning and slapping palms with the donor as he arrived – "Thanks for this, Jace" – and moved to prep the station. Only then did she see her patient, and her smile melted into a scowl.

"Older models need more maintenance, huh?" 

"Only if they're lucky enough to keep runnin' this long," Ace rumbled in reply with an unruffled shrug, grunting as he took his place at her station. Oh, suddenly the war boy was playing the bigger man? Toast narrowed her eyes.

If she wasn't still so unused to the transfusion hookups, she might have been a little rougher with him, but she wasn't about to call over a milking mother and look like she was standing down, nor was she going to let him think she didn't know what she was doing. The needle found its mark on the first try, thank the stars, and Toast yanked off the tourniquet with a snap, settling directly opposite Ace as though he might make a run for it.

"You plannin' on glaring at me the whole time?" he asked, eyeing the needle and, finding nothing wrong with it, leaning back to wait with a sigh. 

"Tell me what you are to Furiosa," she ordered, arms crossed and glowering.

"'m her Ace. Thought you knew that."

"I _do_ know that," Toast snapped, "and I want to know if you're her second, why you weren't good enough to come with us but you're good enough to keep around now."

"Desperate times, eh?" There was a note of mockery in his tone, and Toast bristled, she knew that wasn't the truth. Well, she certainly wasn't going to _beg_ him to explain, so she drew her pistol again and resumed her little sequence of rhythmic taps and clicks, releasing the empty magazine, shoving it back in again, slide forward and back, over and over.

"That some kind of nervous tic you got?" Ace growled after a few moments. "Or is that meant to be intimidating?"

Toast ejected the empty magazine, jammed her hand into her pocket and withdrew her only full one, then loaded and cocked the gun in the space of a few seconds, training it on Ace's head.

"I don't know, is it?"

"Put it down, girl, how many times are you gonna draw a weapon and never take the shot?" Ace sighed and sat up more properly, leaning his elbows on his knees to look across at Toast. "'Least you're holdin' it with two hands, that's a start. Been out to the range on the East spire much?"

Toast's frown deepened, but Ace supplied an answer for her.

"Too much to do 'round the Citadel, I expect. Or the Boss won't let you go."

"We have our roles," Toast said stiffly, lowering the pistol again, but she didn't pocket it again just yet.

"I'd say we need all the help we can get. Those two Vuvalini can shoot worth more than a damn, that's good news. Rock Riders won't leave their canyon, especially with such good salvage now, but they know defenses are low. Gas Town and Bullet Farm're still tense even after the last run." He nodded at the gun in her lap. "Might be worth practicin' any way you can."

Suddenly his gaze was drawn over her shoulder and he started getting to his feet – there was only one person he'd bother with that for while hooked up to a donor, Toast thought, and she hurriedly rammed the pistol back in her pocket just as Ace said, "Boss, everything all right?"

Still running just shy of a hundred percent, Furiosa certainly wasn't letting it show. Her replacement arm was a hulking, clunky thing, a backup only held onto for necessity, and there was no question that they were smack in the middle of necessity. The Immortan's emblem was absent from her belt, but she kept the Imperator's grease most days. A compromise (among many others) to help the war boys transition.

"Toast, Ace." She regarded them with a nod. Her eyes lingered on Toast for the barest split-second longer, then, "Dag sent this report." She held a slate out to Toast, covered with tally marks and shorthand drawings that represented resources from the gardens. "Where is Opulence?"

"In quarantine, she thinks one of the war boys might be contagious," Toast said, accepting the slate. With the milking mothers so used to living in close quarters and large groups, they were very sensitive to the threat of spreading disease, and it was true that the some of the remaining war boys were sick enough that even the simplest cough could pose a real risk, especially with their diminished numbers. 

"Take that to her, would you? Dag thinks we'll have enough for a harvest in a week's time, if Opulence can keep him strong until then."

Toast nodded, no choice but to leave them alone as she headed for quarantine, shoulders tense and back ramrod straight. This wasn't good: her only opportunity to listen in on their little chats, and Furiosa had deliberately sent her away. The thought of leaving Ace alone with her still raised her hackles.

"Take this to Opulence," she ordered the first war pup she saw, her eyes never leaving Ace and Furiosa, "and careful not to smudge." She pushed the slate into his hands and he scampered off; Toast turned and ducked behind an old, now defunct blood bag cage to listen.

Too far. She could barely see them through the bustle and clutter of the infirmary, and she certainly couldn't hear a thing, but she saw enough to notice that Furiosa's stance was relaxed with him, and his attentive in return. The perfect image of a commanding officer and loyal report…Toast didn't buy it for a second. Furiosa glanced in the direction Toast had gone and her caught in her throat as she ducked further out of sight. Then, worse, a sigh from Furiosa, a shake of her head, and a nod from Ace. 

This was a disaster. How long did it take to get from quarantine and back, was this a reasonable amount of time to have completed her task? Toast guessed yes without much debate and sped back to the pair of them, her questionably quick pace and haughty expression all too indicative of what she'd just been doing. Furiosa picked up on it effortlessly and sighed again just as Toast arrived.

"Pups need the trainin' and the boys on the mend need t'stay sharp. I can handle it," Ace was saying, but his eyes were on Toast. "And the rest."

"Good."

"The pups are resuming training?" Toast all but demanded before Furiosa could turn away.

"The pups and the war boys, yes," Furiosa said slowly, her tone weighted with deliberate emphasis.

"And me." Furiosa had obviously anticipated it, Toast would have been shocked if she hadn't, but Furiosa cut her off with unexpected force that almost made her duck back.

"Absolutely not. You're needed here."

"Needed _where,_ there's milking mothers all over the place to help Cheedo here, Capable's in the garage, Dag's got the gardens, I'm the _only_ one without a job."

"You already know how to shoot—"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about," Toast snapped, and even she was slightly startled by her defiance. Furiosa raised her eyebrows, but her jaw had gone tight. "I want to do more than shoot, and you won't even let me practice that much anyway. I'm sick of not having a place and I can _learn,_ you know I can, I can ride out there with the rest of them!"

"Our defenses are still weak, I'm not wasting the ammo on training you for the front line just so you can be run through by some Buzzard."

"My life isn't more valuable than anyone else's!" Toast raised her voice, and the infirmary had gone unusually quiet in the heat of their argument, eyes shifting towards the three of them and then guiltily away. She pressed on. "You can't expect these people to fall in line with _anyone_ up on a pedestal, not you, not me, no one. And if I can't get your blessing, I'll get the Vuvalini's—"

"They know what you want as well as I do, I won't let you—"

"Oh, you won't _let_ me, _Imperator?"_ Toast felt herself fall across the line before she could stop herself, but there was no retreating now, and beside her, Ace took her wrist roughly in warning.

 _"This is not a discussion,"_ Furiosa snarled. Ace released her and Toast stepped back, her voice trapped in her throat, eyes wide. "You are needed here," Furiosa repeated, quieter, but the note of cold finality made it sound like a death sentence. "I won't tell you again." Furiosa jerked her head to Ace.

"Eyes on, just like I said." And with a last icy glare at Toast, Furiosa turned on her heel and stalked from the infirmary. 

Toast stood there, stock-still and stunned. The air was suddenly very hot, and she was only distantly aware of the hum of activity as pups and milking mothers alike resumed their work. A feverish shiver crept over her skin, _mothers above this was not happening,_ she clenched her teeth and wrinkled her nose but the heat wasn't in the infirmary after all, it was gathering behind her cheeks and eyes and she couldn't stuff it back down.

Ace stirred beside her, but she rounded on him before he dared speak. "Say a fucking _word_ and I'll break your nose again," she barked, then turned and all but fled.


	3. Negotiation

Cheedo eased her aching feet into the pool with a sigh, and the Dag glanced up from rinsing her hands to smile at her. Heated by the sun filtering through the glass-paned wall, the circular pool was the perfect temperature of gentle respite from the scorch of the gardens above or the hard rock of the infirmary below. 

"How is she?" Dag asked, lounging on her side to fiddle some more dirt out from under her fingernails.

"I haven't seen her," Cheedo said with a shrug. "Even if I did, I doubt she'd say anything. Everyone can tell she's put out, even the pups."

Dag hummed in consideration, leaning her shoulder lightly against Cheedo's leg. "She found another gun. It's strapped up behind the leg of her bed. Heard her cleaning it late last night, then she stashed it. Probably took it off some war boy."

"How? She barely speaks to them, let alone trades them for anything."

Dag shrugged as she dipped her hands back in the water. The long lengths of her fingers quivered beneath the ripples. "She fears them."

"But it's been months, even the Vuvalini say if they were going to try something they would have done it already, Capable's _friends_ with practically half of them—"

"It isn't rational," Dag said, though whether it was in agreement or observation wasn't clear. 

"Furiosa trusts them, I don't see why anyone should be suspicious if Furiosa says it's okay," Cheedo huffed as she leaned back on her hands. 

"Furiosa's trust is the problem," Dag said just as footsteps sounded outside the repurposed vault. Cheedo's breath caught, not wanting Furiosa to catch them gossiping, or worse, Toast herself, but one look at the silhouette was enough to see it was only Capable. She too heaved a heavy sigh as she waved to them, summoning up an exhausted smile as she collapsed beside them at the pool and kicked off her boots. Cheedo thought it was increasingly funny to watch – no longer did Capable walk with caution and consideration as she did in the old days of the vault, and she looked much more confident for it. The war boys were wearing off on her, or more like smearing, by the look of it: Capable yanked up the legs of her pants and leaned down to scrub the grease from her hands, and Cheedo could see more hiding beneath the errant bangs that had pulled free from her braids.

"Ew, don't do that here, you'll ruin the water!" Cheedo protested, but Capable just grinned and splashed her gently.

"Nurse Cheedo doesn't mind getting covered in blood all day but objects to a little grease?"

"I don't get _covered,_ it's your boys that do it to themselves and then I have to deal with it."

"They're not _my_ boys any more than Dag's green thumbs are hers," Capable said with a diplomatic nod. "I can't help what the kamicrazy ones get up to once they get outside. We're plenty safe and blood-free in the garages, thanks very much."

"Ace's got the older pups out on bikes," Cheedo said disapprovingly. "Some of the recovered war boys, too. A couple fell off today, terrible sand burns."

"Stocks are low, so we dip into reserves," Dag observed, and Capable winced a little.

"Don't remind me, I still think they're too young for all that. Bikes one day, produce runs the next." Capable shook water droplets from her hands, almost no progress at all made on the grease that covered them. "I worry about them."

"Never met a war boy that didn't worry you, right?" came Toast's voice from the door, and Cheedo felt her shoulders tighten, followed immediately by a swoop of guilt. Things weren't supposed to be this way, they were sisters, but with the three of them so firmly in their niches and Toast so conspicuously denied hers, it was hard not to feel like they were all accidentally conspiring against her. Capable, forgiving as ever, didn't rise to the barb. 

"Prosper's wrangling pups in the kitchens, she sent me to fetch someone to help us," Toast announced, leaning in the doorway. "Sorry. I know it's been a long day."

"Cheedo and I will go," Dag volunteered at once, hopping to her feet. A solid five months along in her pregnancy by now, she made no concessions for the baby's sake: if he was going to make it, he was going to make it, and she'd have no hand in it one way or the other. Her thin figure still concealed most of the signs, and the drapes of her perpetually dirt-dusted clothes did the rest of the work. Dag didn't talk about it often, but Cheedo knew the less Dag had to look at it, the less she had to acknowledge it. 

Cheedo got to her feet with a sidelong glance at Capable: the two certainly weren't prone to arguments, but Toast was known to pick at people here and there, and the difference in their personalities made Capable a more frequent target than the rest. Her closeness with the war boys didn't help – it hadn't helped back when Nux was around, even.

"You don't have to, I only need one, I'm already—" Toast said quickly, but Dag was already halfway to the door, Cheedo hopping along behind her, jamming her shoes back on. 

"Nonsense, we like Prosper," Dag said, touching Toast on the arm and offering her a small smile. "Take a break for a while."

They were gone before Toast could object further. She glanced at Capable, then at the door, then back again. "Has Furiosa been by?"

"Not yet. She probably won't until it's time to eat."

Toast nodded and ducked back outside to heave the huge silver door closed, though not all the way. They never fully shut the vault door anymore, not even to sleep, and though the idea of being locked in again made Toast feel ill, sleeping without protection didn't exactly sit well with her, either. With a direct line of sight from the hallway cut off, Toast ducked into the shared bedroom and dragged out one of her rifles before rejoining Capable at the pool. Her sister stared at the rifle but had the courtesy not to say a word, which was lucky, not just because Capable had a habit of voicing too many words for Toast's taste these days, but because Toast didn't just want to hear it.

"How are the boys today?" she asked for lack of anything else to say, checking the clip for ammunition – she knew it was empty, of course it was, it'd never been loaded, but she would never handle it around Capable without being absolutely certain. 

"Fine, nothing out of the ordinary," Capable said a little slowly. "…They're glad to have a few more projects to work on now that some of the older pups are being trained up."

Toast only nodded absentmindedly. She couldn't have summoned up the energy to care about Capable's boys if she tried, but with all of the women tiptoeing around her like a landmine, there was no point actively sulking around them. Capable's typical social graces kicked in, and for once Toast was grateful for it, and she listened as her sister elaborated on their latest projects.

"They're still revved up about the Buzzards' so-called raid last week. We still have some good salvage left, and the spikes have been useful in outfitting the smaller war rig." The back-up rig, the pups' bikes, the desperate need for more escort and pursuit vehicles… Capable went on obligingly to fill the silence, and Toast was content to listen with no demand on her emotional involvement. War boys were so simple. Their attention was so easily funneled, like oil into an engine. She nodded every so often and asked questions in the right places to keep the flow going, tapping the rifle to one shoulder, then the other, then dropping the butt to the floor, switching her grip – Capable fell silent and tilted her head to watch. 

"That's strange. Kind of musical."

"The pups think it's funny," Toast said with a shrug, smiling a little despite herself, but it disappeared at once when she saw Capable perk up out of the corner of her eye. _No,_ this was _not_ an opening to start a speech on the virtues of war boys.

"I'm sorry Furiosa's being difficult," came instead, and Toast looked up, surprised. Capable offered her a small smile, and Toast just scowled and looked back down at her rifle out of habit, her instinctual reaction after being thrown by the sudden acknowledgement. Everyone else had been afraid to mention it specifically, aware that she was content to sulk and push through on her own.

"I could talk to her if you want," Capable tried again. Toast shook her head.

"Doesn't matter. She'll just get angry with you, too."

"It _does_ matter. Everyone's supposed to have a place here, especially us. We're not passive anymore, and we won't ever be again."

Toast snorted. "Maybe you're not. You've got your flock of war boys—"

"They're not _my_ boys," Capable said for the second time that day, rolling her eyes.

"Please. They smear you with grease and you think that means you're friends, they're bred and built for killing, and a few stories about their dead friend won't change that." Regret flushed in her cheeks as soon as the words left her mouth – she knew better than to use Nux against Capable, it was a low blow.

"They're not _bred or built_ for anything, they're not things," Capable said warningly. "They're the same as us—"

"Yes," Toast snapped, guilt vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. "Bred and built, same as us. Maybe you weren't, but some of us _were."_

Capable fell silent at that. The water in the pool had long since gone still, and she stared into it as though some ripples would magically appear to spell out the right words. Ridiculous. There were none. Toast stared hard at her as though daring her to say more, then finally resumed her rhythmic routine with the rifle. 

"If you want to train with them, you're going to have to get used to them," Capable said lowly after a few moments' pause. 

"Well, I'm not going to, so that's not really a problem, is it?"

"We'll see." Capable got to her feet.

 _"Don't_ go to Furiosa," Toast insisted angrily. "I want to be done with this, it doesn't matter—"

"I'm not going to Furiosa," Capable promised her with a hard look over her shoulder at Toast. "But if you don't want her coming after you, you'd better hide that rifle before she turns up."

Leave it to Capable to make a dramatic exit. Toast didn't give her the luxury of an audience, rolling her eyes and turning away to face the pool. She glared into the clear water for a few minutes, and when it provided her with as few answers as it had provided Capable, she stood and snatched up her rifle, twirling it in her hands, over her head and behind her back, before tucking it safely back under her bed.

* * *

True to her word, Capable didn't go to Furiosa, but Furiosa wasn't the only person with influence in the Citadel. Unfortunately the two were closely linked, but Capable was willing to bank on his ability to keep a secret. She'd gambled on war boys before and won, after all.

"She expressly forbade it," Ace said automatically, arms crossed over his broad chest. 

"Because she's holding onto a Citadel that doesn't exist anymore," Capable reasoned. "She can't pick and choose the parts she wants to keep. If she wants an equal Citadel, she can't keep Toast trapped like that. She can't shelter her away just because she doesn't like her talents."

"'Talents' is generous."

"I know that's not the part that bothers you, don't bring up meaningless objections."

Ace frowned down at her, but Capable stood firm. These breeders were a very stubborn lot. 

"She can do it," Capable insisted. "And she needs to know she can do it herself."

"I'm not disobeying orders to be some spiritual guide for a breeder—"

"She is _not a breeder,"_ Capable snarled with such force that Ace's scowl disappeared. "Are you a failed war boy because you've lived so long? Everyone's meant to be one thing or another just because that's what they were told when they were born? That's not the Citadel we're creating. And if you're not going to be part of that message, you might as well leave. I'll get a bike revved for you."

"It's _Imperator's orders—"_

"She's not Immortan! She's not infallible, and she's not the only one that has a say in how things go."

Ace took a menacing step forward, and to her credit, Capable still refused to flinch. "I will not disobey a direct order."

"Then don't," Capable said bluntly. "She told you to watch her, right? Do that. The pups are getting into scrapes out on the sand. There should be a medic on hand to deal with them." She stalked off with a final, challenging glare at Ace, and in those heavy boots and pants, Ace would have thought it was a war boy stomping off down the darkened hall if it weren't for her hair.


	4. Regulation

"You walkin' all the way down or what?" 

Toast bristled at the impatient tone, and she cast a dubious look at the war boys, all of whom looked entirely too enthusiastic to be anything but borderline unhinged, crowing and slapping each other's backs as they wheeled out their bikes or handed them off to two pups at a time to take to the lift. It was _practice,_ why were they so excited? They did it nearly every day. Morons.

Ace was the only motionless one in the flurry of white paint, black grease, and flashing metal, and he pointed up to the ceiling as though to the sun. _Time's a-wastin'._

"C'mon, you can ride down with me," one war boy with – oh, who cared what he was _with,_ they all looked the same anyway, there was no telling one from the other and Toast didn't care to try in the first place. He'd paused to indicate the back of his bike and he gestured to the seat:Toast's frown only deepened. Was this some kind of a joke? She was supposed to just _hop on_ with one of them like it was no big deal and assume they weren't going to just carry her off somewhere? She decided she didn't like this one, he wasn't leering, he was concealing it too well for her comfort, and she took a step back.

"Don't worry about this one, Lattice, I'll deal with her," Ace growled as he stepped forward, taking _Lattice_ by the shoulder and waving him off towards the door. The war boy shrugged and carried on towards the lift, pretending to scoop up one of the older pups as he went. The pup shoved him away with a quick glance to see if any of his brothers were watching, poised to mock him.

Toast hefted her medic's bag up on her hip. "The only one _dealing_ with anyone will be me when these fools go flying off their bikes."

"I'd agree, but your attitude's already settin' the bar pretty high." Ace jerked his thumb over his shoulder at his own bike, outfitted with, much to Toast's dismay, a tiny sidecar. She didn't wait for the order, she didn't want to hear him say the words, and she stomped over to it with as much of her dignity as she could retain.

The drive into the desert wasn't an entirely unpleasant one: a quick five-minute spurt out beyond the remaining Wretched's hovels and past the Main Drag that led to Gas Town, still well within Citadel territory but off the beaten path that would challenge the pups' skills more thoroughly. The sun was warm on her face, wind rippled pleasantly through her hair, and for a moment she truly felt the Citadel disappear behind her, the imposing trio of spires shrunk against her back and all she saw was the open horizon ahead. She wasn't allowed out often. None of them were, and it was hard not to look at the day as something of a gift: this was one of the scant few things she missed from her time before the Citadel. That had been fleeting too, an allowance she was only permitted a handful of times, but as sand flicked sharp against her face, for a moment thousands upon thousands of days seemed much closer. 

She cut off any indulgent memories before they went too far, it wouldn't do to be anything but professional on this trip or she wouldn't be let out again. Well, professional and taciturn. Maybe acerbic if the situation called. But the drive made her feel light regardless, and as she rode along attached to Ace, she did take some amusement in picturing a war boy crammed into the side car she occupied, which would barely fit anyone taller than her in the first place. 

"We lost the best of our fleet in the pursuit," Ace called over the roar of engines as though he could feel her questioning the quality of their party. Toast snorted.

"What, are you self-conscious?"

"War boy's only as good as his ride."

 _Not so good, then,_ Toast thought to herself, but the were there before they knew it, skidding to a halt in a wide stretch of loose dust and sand surrounded by gentle dunes. She pushed up her goggles and watched the other war boys arrive, six in all, each with a pup or two between the ages of twelve and fifteen clinging to the back. Some had rifles strapped to their backs, and Toast felt a stir of jealous resentment.

"All right, pups, you're with me to start. Same goes for the rest of you, except you, Bolt and Scorch. Target practice was a joke this morning, you two're on cleaning."

The boy called Lattice laughed aloud and punched one of the boys who'd been singled out in the arm. Another sneered, "Ooh, mediocre," with exaggerated venom to the pups' amusement. 

"You dragged us all the way out here for cleanin'?" one protested, and Toast assumed that one was Scorch: the better part of his right shoulder was covered in an angry burn scar that even his white paint couldn't conceal. 

"You waste my time with lousy practice, I waste yours. Get to it."

The boys grumbled as they snatched the rifles from the pups' backs, and when they suddenly turned to Toast, she scrambled to her feet. They started towards her, only to reach down and yank up the toolbox from the bottom of the sidecar, beneath where she'd stuffed her legs and feet; no wonder it'd seemed so small. They didn’t even bother to acknowledge her as they did, too busy muttering curses at Ace beneath their breath, which Toast half agreed with and half condemned. Poor performance meant punishment, simple as that. Surely these war boys knew that by now.

Watching practice was boring. The pups tore around the dunes with reckless abandon, but none had fallen yet, not like the ones she'd heard about Cheedo treating in weeks previous. Why was she even here? Driving wasn't that hard, she'd only done it a few times and never on a bike, but any moron could do the job without too much effort, right? Bolt and Scorch were giving a halfhearted polishing effort behind her, their attention mostly on the pups and the war boys who'd had the sense to shoot well that morning rather than on the filthy rifles piled in front of them. Toast had folded herself back into the side car to watch, legs dangling idly over the edge and back resting against Ace's bike, yawning every so often in the heat of the sun.

"How long does this go, anyway?"

"Long as he wants," came Bolt's answer, thick with annoyance. "You know, you're allowed to help with this."

"I'm on medic duty," Toast said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"Oh, 'cause you don’t know how to clean a gun," Bolt reasoned in a tone that lit Toast's veins aflame. She huffed and sat up specifically to shoot him a scathing glare.

"It's not my fault you two are shit shots."

"Probably never held a gun in her life," Bolt said to Scorch, who didn't appear to care in the slightest.

"I've been around guns longer than half those pups have even been alive," Toast sniffed. "Can you say the same? Or did you only get thrown out here when they realized you can't fix a rig for your life and kill every green thing you touch?"

"That's exactly why I'm out here. Kill everything I touch, an' not just green," Bolt said, baring sharp teeth in a wicked grin, but Toast just huffed and turned back to watch the pups. 

"Better off dead than anything else," Toast muttered, and to her surprise, Scorch grunted in agreement behind her. She cast a covert glance back at him, but Bolt had returned to his polishing in peace, and Scorch hadn't even looked up in the first place. 

Every once in a while one of them would come lay a rifle against the side of Ace's bike, worn and overused metal cleaned to a dull gleam. Toast tensed every time, certain she was about to feel the cold barrel pressed against the back of her neck if she dared let her guard down. Twice she heard Bolt snicker behind her back – they must have noticed. Kamicrazy bastard. Fed up with their derision, annoyed by her own anxiety, and bored beyond belief by the hours in the blank wasteland, she chucked her medic's bag out of the side car and unfolded her legs to stand up and stretch. 

"Y'wanna hold one?"

Toast jerked around. It was Scorch, but at a comfortable distance, and she raked him up and down with her eyes for any sign of condescension. Finding none, her words came out accusingly anyway. "What for?"

Scorch shrugged and leaned the rifle alongside its brothers. "Nothin's loaded, but it might help." He retreated with an easy swagger, and Toast watched him return to Bolt, who was rolling his eyes and muttering something she couldn't hear.

She glared at the rifles as though it would be a weakness to take his recommendation. But Capable said some boys slept with brass knuckles. Nearly all of them were afraid to run totally unarmed. Even the war boys who were helping train the pups had pockets loaded down with knives and various other weaponry, it was just part of their routine. Children liked routine, Toast remembered, and war boys were as childish as they come – they probably found some kind of comfort in it. Not just the knowledge that they could defend themselves, but the physical confirmation of it. Loathe though she was to adopt _any_ part of war boy routine, she chose a rifle and let it rest heavily in her hands, hefting it once to test its weight. 

Scorch was right. It did help a little. She didn't flinch the next few times they came to set their finished firearms aside.

The sun no longer hung so high in the sky, its burn smoldering into a duller orange as it dipped closer to the dunes in the distance. Bolt and Scorch had long since finished their punishment and were sitting in the sand, long legs splayed out in front of them, but the boys and pups had torn off over the dunes, leaving them to watch only for the occasional rise and fall of a bike before they fell out of sight again. Toast held the rifle by the barrel and swung it back and forth between her hands like a pendulum, lifted it up and turned it so it fell over the back of her hand before she snatched it up again – she could do both sides now, last week she could only really get the right side reliably. She was just beginning to practice flipping the rifle up to her shoulder as if to aim when a bike peeled straight over a ridge and into her crosshairs; she lowered the rifle and heard Bolt and Scorch leap to their feet behind her as it sped towards them.

"Ah, he's hurt." Toast relaxed to hear Scorch's calm tone. She knew it was one of theirs. Of course it was. But still.

"Knew someone'd get it at one point or another, the tires on half those bikes're a shredded mess."

The snarl of the engine grew louder as it approached, and Toast recognized the war boy who'd offered to drive her out – she was glad to have declined the invitation now that she was watching him drive up one-handed, the favored arm covered in blood up to his shoulder. He skidded to a halt just in front of them and Toast hurried for her medic's bag; Bolt and Scorch were already laughing as they took the handlebars from him to support the bike.

"Where's your pup? He have the sense to bail before you slipped up?"

"Stupid mongrel threw me!" the newcomer protested, spitting on the ground and turning to examine his arm. He swung his leg over the side and left the other two to handle the rest. "Had him driving, me in the back, took a turn too close to the edge of the dune, dragged me practically a quarter click before he quit panicking and remembered how to stop."

"Come here, let me get a look," Toast ordered, lips tight. It wasn't pretty: the sand had scraped away several layers of skin and left a raw, angry, bleeding stretch behind, and countless grains of sand were digging further still where the drag had ground them underneath. 

"Just wrap it, it'll be fine," he said gruffly. "Ace's new policy, eh? Only good as long as you're alive? Easy for him, he's fuckin' ancient."

 _"Furiosa's_ policy," Toast corrected him, pushing him on the chest to force him to sit down. "I'm going to clean and bandage this for now, but Cheedo will want to see it, too. What's your name? Lace?"

"Lattice." The quip was lost on him, but to his credit, he tensed but did not turn away when she set about her work. She knew how terribly it stung. 

Bolt was still sniggering behind her, and she could hear the click of gunmetal as he found entertainment elsewhere. "Oi, am I gonna have to pupsit you too?" she snapped. "Didn't you just clean those?"

Sure enough, the rifle clattered with a dull thunk in the sand and Bolt cursed as he picked it back up. "What were you doin' with all that twirlin'? Some breeder thing?" 

Toast sighed to stifle the simmering in her blood and she turned to look coldly over her shoulder, but her anger disappeared at once and she was forced to stifle something else entirely. Scorch was holding his own rifle out at arm's length, chin tucked back as though he were afraid it'd hit him in the face, and trying to replicate the back-of-the-hand passes she'd been messing around with before. He nearly caught it, but Bolt dove forward and knocked it out of his hands: Scorch aimed a kick at him in retaliation but missed.

"I certainly wasn't doing _that,"_ she snorted, and Lattice turned to look, too.

"Yeah, but mark this. Scorch, heads," Bolt called as he snatched his rifle up from the ground and chest passed it to Scorch without warning, who thrust it back at him perpendicular to the ground. Bolt tried again, this time trying to flick it end over end, and Scorch had to dive out of the way to avoid being hit.

"You two fumeheads're gonna piss off Ace, you're diggin' sand into the barrels!" Lattice grumbled irritably, and despite herself, Toast angled herself so she could watch the two idiots try her tricks while she worked. They were all long limbs and inane war boy curse words.

The rest of the war boys crested the dunes not long after Toast finished bandaging Lattice, all lined up in a sloppy but clear formation. "Now they figure it out," Lattice muttered, but he waved them down nevertheless, and Bolt and Scorch scrambled to knock the sand out of the rifles as best they could before Ace could see what they were up to.

The near-sunset ride back was cooler, slower, and Ace didn't speak to Toast as she rode beside him, not even to question the blood on her hands or the scent of gun polish that lingered about her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, some war boys! Of course I came up with like thirty names and only used three of them. There will be plenty of time for more, though. 
> 
> As always, I welcome any feedback you may have, positive and constructive alike. Thanks for reading!


End file.
